What the Hell, Hero?/Video Games

• Main
• Laconic
• Playing With
• Quotes
• All Subpages
• Create New

Robin... not funny.

The fact you're the Player Character means you're also supposed to be The Hero.

Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes you can choose to be a dick instead.

That is, exactly what you're doing right now! WHAT THE HELL?

---

• One of the most extreme examples is the first BioShock (series), in the worst ending. Should the player decide to harvest all of the Little Sisters, Tenenbaum (who is usually calm and collected) absolutely blows her gasket and proceeds to rip the player character a new one.
• The 2008 Prince of Persia has the Prince undoing all the work he and Elika had undergone to save the world from Ahriman because he couldn't stand the price: Elika's life. So, he destroys the Trees of Life, and Elika is understandably a bit upset ("WHY?"). The expansion provides a pretty good reason. He knew that with the prison not at full strength, Ahriman would eventually break out again anyway, and with Elika dead, there wouldn't be any way to stop him. So he releases the seal and brings Elika back to life because she's the only one who can do it, though eventually Ahriman becomes too strong for her to do anything by herself and she abandons the Prince to go find her people...
• This trope is a standard in Role Playing Games with recruitable party members. People who don't agree with you will voice their disagreement and possibly even leave the party if they have a problem with the behavior of the Player Character.
  • In Fallout 2 some NPC party members will abandon you in disgust if you get the Child Killer or Slaver karmic title (Child Killer is avoidable by planting armed explosives in the desired child's inventory). Similarly in Fallout 3, some NPC followers will abandon you depending on your current Karma.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, several companions will chew you out over actions they don't agree with. Arcade Gannon is particularly notable; if you tell the Remnants to support the Legion, he will lose his shit and call you a sociopath, among other things.

Arcade Gannon: "Why don't you make like Odysseus and get lost?!"

• • • It's worth noting that Arcade is one of the most composed, articulate people in the whole game. But if you make certain Card-Carrying Villain choices, he experiences borderline Angrish and is reduced to childishly insulting you and storming out.
    • The best example is if you choose to use the Helios One power plant to reactivate the dormant ARCHIMEDES II satellite laser rather than use it for, you know, powering communities. Being someone who wants to use old world technology to restore civilization rather than nuke it a second time over, Arcade responds with "You activated ARCHIMEDES?! What the hell is wrong with you!!" and then proceeds to either storm out or attack you depending on how psychotic your response is.
  • In the Baldur's Gate series good party members will leave the party if you reach a low enough reputation from your evil deeds and vice-versa, but there are also other ways of pissing people off, such as wagering on dog fighting when you have a Nature Hero in the party.
  • In Jade Empire, your party has one big "What the hell?" if you decide to bind Death's Hand's spirit into servitude. And then you can bind them as well.
  • The bulk of your plot-relevant interactions with the Nakama in Knights of the Old Republic will be instances of this if you choose The Dark Side of the Karma Meter.

Jolee Bindo: (in his absolutely best sarcastic old man tone of voice) Nice... nice... nice... nice... Should we next find some insects to pull the legs off? Sounds fun, doesn't it?

• • Similarly, the Dark Side members sometimes complain about you for being soft if you are charitable or merciful. In Knights of the Old Republic II, Kreia complains about overly compassionate or brutal acts, suggesting instead that you subtly twist situations to your advantage.
  • Inverted with HK-47. If you become depraved enough, he goes into a hilarious speech praising you as the first "meat-bag" he's ever enjoyed serving.
• In Ultima VII, your buddies will scold you to no end if you pick up anything that doesn't belong to you but they don't mind if you give it to them instead. Enough infractions will make them leave the party (sometimes resulting in Game Breaking Bugs). Even the Big Bad will sometimes pop up (literally), and scold you "you'd best not do that Avatar". Hypocritical Humor anyone?
  • Most of Guardian's lines are dark sarcasm.
• River City Ransom: EX has various unethical attacks, such as kicking the opponent while they're down or curb-stomping them. Enough surprise punches to the head while a boss is talking, and your team will leave or turn on you. So much for Shut UP, Hannibal, eh?
  • Gleefully, all of these are fair game in the NES original.
• In Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, some party members will complain if you perform acts strongly counter to their alignment (especially good-aligned characters complaining about killing neutral NPCs unprovoked), dropping their opinion of you until they eventually leave or even attack you. Though if you're well-enough versed in healing magic and know the Resurrection spell, you can let your allies "accidentally" die in a fight and then bring them back to life to restore their high opinion of you. Though for some reason, Mages will gladly follow technologists.
• Final Fantasy Tactics is filled with call-outs between characters, including the main hero, Ramza. Early on in the game he gets called out on that, being born and raised a noble, he's blindingly naive about class differences and shares the blame in being part of the system that ended up killing Delita's--his common-born best friend's--sister. As a result Ramza abandons his name and spends some time running away from the guilt before coming to agree that, while he may not have directly killed Delita's sister, he WAS part of the aristocracy that did her in and more or less stood by and let it happen. This was a development that gave him the strength to be willing to fall into obscurity (something which he himself looked at to be the worst kind of death) to do the thankless job in fighting against the wrongs of corrupt politics.
  • And being Ramza's foil, Delita definitely counts, and with worse deeds to his name. In reaction to losing his sister, he determines the only way to change a world that manipulates everyone is to be the manipulator at the top so he can use people the right way. Which he does and becomes king. He uses everyone, including those closest to him, and many characters consider this VERY bad taste. There are several times in the story where he's called out on it; most notable of which is when a trusted companion expressed surprise that he would go so far as to use his best friend (to which Delita furiously reacted by telling her to shut up) and Ramza himself asks Delita if he's not as bad as the rest by using the woman he loves—the Princess, who is treated as nothing more than a political pawn (which Delita couldn't give an answer to). In fact, Delita got the ultimate call-out when the Princess ends up stabbing Delita, accusing him of never caring for her and only ever being a cold, manipulative bastard.
• Marche of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is frequently questioned on whether his actions (attempting to bring his friends home from an idealized dream world) are right, though just about always by people who were on the good side of the transfer. Whether or not he actually is remains contested on this Wiki.
• Final Fantasy VII begins with your committing eco-terrorism for pay. Checking the news soon after reports that hundreds died and untold numbers of people are left without power. And, just to make sure you can't miss it, Cait Sith calls you out on it again late in the game.
• Transfer enough of your crew to serve in torment and death with the Druuge in Star Control II and the Starbase Commander will call you out. It will also get much, much harder to recruit.

"Captain, you are a heinous SLAVE TRADER!!!"

• You'll get this a lot of if you play the Renegade side of the Karma Meter in Mass Effect. "Commander Shepard, I called you in so that we could avoid civilian casualties."
  • Hell, even a Paragon Shepard gets this sometimes, as some characters occasionally berate him/her for being "too soft". See below for such an example.
  • You get called out on both sides of the Paragon/Renegade spectrum (it's important to bear in mind that this scale doesn't necessarily represent good or evil in black and white terms. After Noveria, the Council will call you out if you exterminate the rachni or you spare them, in which case the Council accuse you of putting the entire galaxy at risk.
  • In the sequel, many, many people (including some of his/her former squadmates) chew out Shepard for accepting the aid of Cerberus. To be fair, Cerberus is one of the biggest (and infamous) criminal organizations in the setting...
    • Shepard can turn it back on them (very politely) by pointing out that Cerberus was the only group at all concerned with the mass human abductions by the Collectors, which was the only reason Shepard was accepting said aid, aside from the whole bringing him/her back from the dead thing. Your alien squad mates concede that no one else was as concerned about the Collectors when they join you.
  • The Paragon ending for Zaeed's loyalty mission has a double moment. Zaeed starts to call out Shepard for allowing his Arch Enemy, who he's been pursuing for years, escape, but Shepard throws it back in his face by calling him out for being willing to slaughter countless innocents in order to get his revenge.
  • In the new Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, Shepard gets called out by the asari Spectre Tela Vasir for working for Cerberus. However, this is especially hard-hitting if you play as a Sole Survivor Shepard, as she specifically points out that Cerberus is responsible for the slaughter of Shepard's unit back on Akuze. This is the only time it actually gets mentioned--except for one e-mail from Toombs, a surviving squadmate from Akuze that had been tested on for years by Cerberus.
    • Still, nothing she can say at that point can really spoil the fact that you just kicked her ass. Especially after the overconfidence she was giving you earlier.
  • In the first game, if Ashley kills Wrex while you're trying to calm him down on Virmire, you can call her out for acting rashly. She counters by claiming that it was clear negotiations had failed from her perspective.
  • In The Arrival DLC, Shepard gets one from Admiral Hackett after s/he obliterated an entire star system killing over 300,000 people. However s/he had a good reason which Hackett acknowledges telling him/her that while s/he will have to face trial, he'll do everything he can to stall it. He also tells him/her to keep that mission report because he doesn't need to read it to know s/he did the right thing.
  • The third game also has its moments especially with regards to curing the Genophage. No matter your choice, somebody will call you out on it. If you take the Renegade path, Mordin and Wrex will both confront and end up being killed by you as a result and if you take the Paragon route the Salarian Dalatrass will send you a bitter e-mail. Either way, you lose valuable resources as a result.
    • Wrex's reaction is completely understandable by choosing the conversation option where Wrex reveals that Shepard's sabotage of the genophage killed his unborn son. One hell of a Player Punch, this is.

(Wrex plays back the earlier conversation between Shepard and a Salarian) Shepard: Where did you get that? Wrex: Mordin wasn't my only source in the STG. Or did you think I was as dumb as my brother Wreav?! (whips out his shotgun) WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!

• Many games that keep track of your character's morality will punish you with a Downer Ending for being too evil, but Ogre Battle 64 really takes it up a notch. If you recruited too many chaotic characters and captured, rather than liberated many towns before killing the Big Bad, you get a "bonus" mission in which the protagonists of the original Ogre Battle call you out and try to kill you for being a Jerkass, and you're forced to kill them. Then you get the very worst possible ending. Alternatively, you can lose the battle, and rather than kill you, the heroes of the original game allow you to join them on a new mission to atone for your sins.
  • Tactics Ogre also has several, especially if Denim takes the Lawful route, where nearly every battle in Chapter 2 consisted of enemy leaders calling Denim out on his participation in the Baramus Massacre. In the chaotic route, taking the more morally sound route, Denim still gets chastised for trying to keep his hands clean of the atrocities the WLA commit for the betterment of their country—but continuing to kill people through warfare for the sake of romantic idealism. And of course, in the Neutral Route, a character defects because Denim has proven to be wishy-washy. Lovely.
• In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Micaiah is called on her very first My Country, Right or Wrong act by her Like Brother and Sister Bodyguard Crush. It Got Worse, but Sothe gets more supportive once he realizes she doesn't have a choice. The trope is also invoked by Micaiah's antagonists and some other members of the party, especially since they can defect. They are the minority, though.
• Radiata Stories' protagonist is taken down a peg by Gawain for killing the wind dragon, which screws up a world already headed for disaster because of the death of a different dragon.
• At the end of Shadow of the Colossus, Lord Emon calls Wander on allowing the colossi to combine and become much more powerful, and letting them possess his (Wander's) body. Lord Emon goes on to state that he hopes that, if Wander survived, he will atone for his sins.
• At the end of the GDI campaign in Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, if the Commander (you) opts to deploy the Liquid Tiberium Bomb against the Scrin, you end up killing twenty million people, including your entire assault force. Immediately afterward, General Granger outright accuses you of being a war criminal and says he would court martial you if he could but since he can't due to you being lauded as a hero by the public for ending the war, he instead washes his hands on GDI and resigns.
• Caim from Drakengard can be described as a cold-blooded killing machine driven by revenge. Often, while killing enemies in the game, several characters will object to his ruthless killing; for example, Leonard tells him "your heart is black".
  • And yet at the end Caim comes off as one of the more symphathetic characters, especially when compared to Nowe, the protagonist of the direct sequel, who completely averts this trope. To put it bluntly, Nowe never does anything right. He goes against the government he has been raised in by his beloved adopted father solely on the words of a woman he just met and the actions of a person who has always hated him. He willingly decides to destroy the seals, which were explicitly placed to stabilize the world and in the process kills hundreds of people, many of which he probably knew or trained with. He is given countless warnings that what he is doing is not right, but he is never explicitly called out. Even after his insane crusade leads to the obvious result of the world falling into chaos, Nowe never even wonders if he was to blame for the whole mess, not even after his childhood friend is essentially sacrificed in order to bring back the world.
• The Witcher involves making choices which will severely alienate at least half of your hero's acquaintances, resulting in a "What the Hell" speech from at least somebody—most significantly, you can join the paramilitary bigots who slay monsters, but who also subjugate the "lesser races" (alienating your "lower-class" friends) or join the resistance to these oppressors, themselves so embittered at human rule that they have no problem with human collateral damage (alienating your "upper-class" friends. You can take a neutral path, largely pacifying your friends, but alienating most everyone else on your journey.
• Luke of Tales of the Abyss gets an epic calling out by his entire party after his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment, largely for his refusing to accept responsibility for what he's done, which leads to his Heroic BSOD and subsequent Character Development.
  • Which in turn is a What the Hell, Hero? Moment for them as well, as they rebuke him for keeping secrets, when they themselves were hiding stuff. Especially Anise.
• Yuri Lowell of Tales of Vesperia. As a Vigilante Man, he kills two people who were using either their position or nobility to escape the law. When Flynn calls him out on this, Yuri freely admits that he's a criminal, but that he did what he had to do.

Yuri: But you can't deny that lives were saved because those bastards were put down. You'd rather tell those people "sorry you had to die today, I promise I'll change things soon."?

• • Subverted in that he knew the consequences and that he will have to be punished for it. He knew full well that it was wrong but saving all those lives was worth it.

Flynn: That's the behavior of a common criminal. Yuri: I recognize it for what it is and I've made my choices. Murder is a crime. Flynn: And even knowing that, you intend to dirty your hands. Yuri: Intend to? I already have

• • Yuri returned the favor when Flynn unintentionally helped Alexei, who he's been worshiping and blindly following orders of all this time, by deterring Yuri's group and letting Estelle get kidnapped.

Yuri:Just what the hell are you doing? What happened to advancing as a Knight and fixing the empire from within? You've been nothing more than a damn puppet on Alexei's string. Don't you dare tell me that the Don and Belius died for nothing more than that! He was there working alongside you this whole time, Flynn! How could you possibly not know?!

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty as part of its Mind Screw ending, asks the main character if he enjoys all of the killing he's been doing. This is made far, far creepier by not so subtly suggesting that they're ignoring the fourth wall, and saying "Dude, do you seriously find killing people FUN?" to the player. Something similar happens in the previous installment, too, although that one was not intended to be a fourth wall breach. As well as in the third installment, where you have to walk down a river being harassed by the ghosts of all those you've killed during your current play through. Detailed to the point of the game remembering the method of death. The appropriate body parts will be injured.
  • Can also occur in both 2 and 3, should you begin to beat up on the female protagonist following you at certain points. Your support team in 3 has some choice words for you when you go this route. And in 2, try kicking around the hostages you're supposed to rescuing. The protagonist's girlfriend calls him on it.
  • Let's not forget Naomi blaming Snake for Grey Fox's, erm, condition.
    • Don't forget Liquid and Mantis's Not So Different speeches. Probably Meryl's diagnosis on what Snake is like from the little she managed to find out about him, too.
  • Also in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Those seagulls. They annoy the crap out of you, cause Raiden to trip and fall, and in the right cases, that fall can kill him. So you can decide to kill a few of them. Nuh-uh. Both AI Campbell AND Rose call you on it, with Rose treating you like the monster you acted as until you apologize to her.
    • Raiden will also be quite ticked off at Snake after the latter betrays him with the Cyborg Ninja/Olga Gurlukovich and ends up capturing/delivering him to the Sons of Liberty. The fact that it was actually a fake betrayal just to lessen security onboard Arsenal Gear did little to dissuade Raiden of his irritation at Snake, as he didn't even let him in on the plan at first.
  • Snake berates himself with Liquid's voice in his head if he kills too many soldiers in one story 'arc.' Otacon and Rose will have a similar reaction as the above if you start mauling the wolves in the snow area, and eventually stop talking to you.
  • Pyro Bison in Ghost Babel will tell off Snake for killing and having enjoyment of it, and he makes it not so subtle of a fourth wall break by telling him the total number of people that Snake killed (note: the number that "Snake" killed is the exact same amount that the player killed).
• In Neverwinter Nights, the resurrection clerics will regularly give you a chewing-out if you give in to the Video Game Cruelty Potential.
• Firing on allied ships in the Free Space series results in them turning against you and trying to kill you. If you jump out you end up arrested with a debriefing telling you about your upcoming court martial and execution.
• In Starlancer, similar to FreeSpace, firing on Alliance ships will result in you being executed by firing squad THE MOMENT YOU DOCK AND STEP OFF YOUR SHIP.
  • This one is particularly annoying because they do ask you to shoot down torpedoes fired on allied ships. If you are attacking a torpedo, but it still impacts on and destroys a ship, chances are a few of your dinky laser shots aimed at the torpedo hit the ship too. And that, apparently, is apparently enough for everyone to assume you destroyed that ship.
• While Fable II tends to take a Card-Carrying Villain viewpoint if you choose the evil path to completing quests, it will call you out if you kill Farmer Giles or break Alex's heart, as well as probably some others.
• Malygos gets called out in the latest World of Warcraft expansion for a plan that at least involves genocide and may in fact cause the planet to explode. Said people calling him out, besides players, are every single other dragonflight. Even the Black Dragonflight gives a reaction of, "... sigh, you had to do the one thing that would piss even us off and make us side with these losers to defend this place, didn't you?"
  • In a Hellfire Peninsula quest chain, you are first sent out to locate a draenei named Vindicator Sedai. When it turns out that Sedai has been murdered, his friend Makuru asks you to kill some Mag'har orcs in revenge. When you turn in the quest, Sedai's brother, Anchorite Obadei, upbraids Makuru for it, telling him that that's not what Sedai would have wanted. You're sent out to atone for what you've done...and it turns out that Sedai was not killed by the Mag'har, but by a fel orc assassin.
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Absence of Justice: Mao and company wind up fighting the Overlord's hand in Mao's Heart World (they're trying to get Almaz' hand-made Hero title out AGAIN), and after it regenerates, almost everyone starts pondering how to keep it from coming back. Almaz finds that it's plugged in at an outlet and pulls the plug. It shuts down the hand as expected -- but it also reduces Mao's mind to a larval state and takes his language skills with it. Almaz hears no end of it from Geoffrey and takes a Groin Attack from Sapphire before she ditches him to fix the problem herself ("If there's a God, please kill me now."). Champloo talks some sense into Almaz, which causes him to go inside and help the rest of the team put Mao's mind back in proper order. He then puts his Hero title back in Mao's heart, figuring he has no right to it until he can open Mao's heart the natural way.
• Mediocre game Lair had a moment like this for Rohn on the final mission for the Asylians, on it Rohn merciless bombards the Mokai capital on his dragon, then he receives the order to flame a building with screaming people running towards it, he is told that the fleeing people were Mokai soldiers and the building was an armory, so he does it, reducing it to flaming mess, later he swoops down to survey the destruction, he finds a single shrouded figure standing in the middle of what is left of the building, on Rohn's touch, this figure dissolves into ash revealing a normal skull and an infant one inside the shroud, Rohn realizes that the building was a temple and the people he incinerated were innocent civilians seeking refuge from the destruction, and the figure that dissolved was of a woman who tried to protect her baby from the fireblaze.
• Arthas from Warcraft III, or specifically Uther calling him out on his decision to raze the city of Stratholme.
  • 'You lied to your men and betrayed the mercenaries that fought for you! What's happened to you, lad? Is revenge all that matters to you now?!' Courtesy of Muradin, folks.
  • And again in World of Warcraft in the Caverns of Time when this is repeated.
  • In the ending of The Frozen Throne, these exact sentences echo in the background. Arthas continues with what he's doing regardless.
• In Wing Commander III, if Blair decides to disobey orders to go after Hobbes, which results in Vaquero's death, Eisen will call him out on putting his own desire to avenge Cobra above the needs of the ship.
  • In the previous installment, Vengeance of the Kilrathi, firing into allied ship too much results into you being declared a traitor and fired upon.
• Devil Survivor has a few such moments, but the biggest is probably the Escape ending, which goes out of its way to make sure you feel like a total loser for breaking through the blockade, killing the angels and SDF, thus letting demons out of the barricade while leaving the Earth completely undefended against them. Way to go, 'hero'.
  • If you choose to side with Naoya and Kaido, which is basically the game's Chaos route, Yuzu calls you out and leaves, along with Midori and/or Keisuke, depending on whether or not they're alive/still in the party at that point.
• Dr. Breen tries to shame Dr. Gordon Freeman this way in Half-Life 2, calling him out as a scientist who has a great deal of destruction to his credit, but has never created, discovered, or improved on anything. Considering that in just a few months of Gordon working at his shiny new research job had him battling invading aliens for survival, then being put in stasis for twenty years before being drafted as a freedom fighter, it's not like it was really his decision...
  • Of course, considering Dr. Breen was working for the Combine, aiding them in enslaving humanity, it's kind of hard to take his accusations seriously.
• Touhou has at least one fun example of this, in Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Your character meets with Sikeiki Yamaxanadu, judge of the dead, who points out that you're going to hell... (or worse!)
  • The response, of course, is to "befriend" her, Nanoha style!
  • There was also that time when Reimu looted the village in Perfect Cherry Blossom.
  • And the time she planned to do the same to Satori's house in Subterranean Animism. In fact, Subterranean Animism as a whole is this, as evil spirits are running rampant in Gensokyo and the youkai (who can't go into the underground themselves) want Reimu and Marisa to help fix it, yet the only thing they care about are hot springs.
  • But what really takes the cake is the final boss of Undefined Fantastic Object, Byakuren Hiriji. A former buddhist monk who wanted to reate a world where youkai and humans can live in peace, and was sealed away for her efforts. She calls your player character out for Fantastic Racism, especially if you chose the character's "must be youkai up to no good again!" path instead of the "TREASURE!" path. Especially especially Sanae, who's started to get a little too into her new job of "youkai extermination".
• In a bizarre overlap with this trope and What the Hell, Player?, Sagi does this to his guardian spirit during a Heroic BSOD in Baten Kaitos Origins. Then he gets one from Guillo almost immediately afterwards.
  • Guillo does this to Milly several times, most notably when she reveals that she has been spying on Sagi for her father Baelheit. Though this one probably has a little more to do with them being a hilarious case of Vitriolic Best Buds rather than any actual harm caused by her actions.
  • In the first game, Xelha gives Kalas a big one for looting the bodies of her friends while she's standing right there. You as the guardian spirit can call him out on his more dickheaded moves, like mocking Xelha or betraying the entire party.
• The characters of In Famous enter the game viewing Cole as an up and coming hero (not the townspeople, though—They start off the game hating Cole no matter your Karmic preference). However, evil actions get a lot of characters wondering what the hell you're doing. Zeke will call and tell you that people have been describing you as a maniac destroying everything you see, and Moya will get upset at you (most notably during the mission in which you're supposed to be getting rid of tar generators in some buildings' water supplies).

"You're not making life any easier for these people, Cole."

• • The worst is Trish, though. As soon as she discovers that you detonated the Ray Sphere and caused the blast, she immediately leaves you. At first she'll get upset at you when she discovers that you're not actually really getting rid of the tar in the water. ("We would've been better off without your 'help'.") Then she'll berate you when you later save her life, saying that it seems as though you're purposefully trying to undo Trish's work as a doctor.
    • This all comes to a head at the end of the mission "The Price" (whether you pick the good side or evil side, the ending depends on your current karmic rank). If you're evil, the mission's end cutscene, while Trish is allowed her last few words before dying, has Cole narrate that "For a second, she sprung to life, long enough to tell me that she was ashamed of what I'd become. That God had given me these powers and I squandered them..."
  • If the player character chooses to detonate the Ray Sphere to enhance his power, his karmic rating will instantly go to the level of infamous, regardless of how high it was before, and it will stay there for the rest of the game. The WTH,H? moment comes during the cutscene, where John grabs the Ray Sphere out of Cole's hands, giving him the essential "Are you crazy?!" reaction before the remaining energy implodes and tears him to pieces. But it's ok. You got what you wanted. Though one could argue that the game's locking of the Karma Meter also applies. (Though that seems to be more of a What the Hell, Player? moment.)
• Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow has Dario accusing Soma of going too far for (supposedly) killing Dimitri, and when Soma apologizes for it, it's actually subverted by Dario basically saying, "Ah, what are you talking about? I just wanted to beat that stuck up jerk to death with my own hands!" Considering Dario is one of the bad guys, I guess you could also consider it a subversion of Even Evil Has Standards.
  • Double subverted in that Dimitri isn't actually dead.
• Shirou calls Archer out on letting Caster escape under the hopes that maybe she can kill Berserker for him or something. Knowing perfectly well that she's incredibly dangerous and does not really mind causing collateral damage to civilians. Archer tells him to shut up and go away.
• In the evolution-based RPG E.V.O.: Search for Eden for the SNES, there is a point in the second chapter where you are actually able to kill and devour a pair of helpful amphibians (one of whom is a child whose father sacrificed himself to save his species). Doing so causes a horrified Gaia to ask what you're doing. If you eat the meat the two provide, you're instantly killed. (That's karma for you.)
  • Which doesn't make any sense as both the game and Gaia constantly talk that "Survival Of The Fittest" is what you are supposed to do.
    • Survival of the Fittest has to do with reproduction, not with being the "strongest animal" and eating everything weaker.
• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has the enemies call Cipher "mercenary scum" or something similar after you destroy noncombatants or neutralised enemy vehicles and the FMV interviewees are generally more derogatory. The game also has Video Game Cruelty Punishment by sending tougher ace squadrons after you. Inverted also in that Pixy sometimes rationalises away your deeds as being positive, though it's open for interpretation as to whether he believes his own words.
• Several characters in Deus Ex will call JC out if you decide to kill the NSF troops in Castle Clinton. It's hard to tell which is worse - Cool Old Soldier General Carter's dissapointment, or the cold, Trigger Happy Anna Navarre's approval.
  • There are a number of other actions that can lead to anything from angry reprimands (like killing the NSF leader during the first mission) to outright horrified shock (opening fire on allies, sometimes, and killing Navarre, on the 747. Basically, many characters will actually react in at least somewhat believable ways if JC is played as a Heroic Sociopath.

Manderley: "By the way, Denton, stay out of the ladies restroom. That kind of activity embarrasses the agency more than it does you."

• • • The Nameless Mod features this in spades if you do the WorldCorp ending. You'll receive a small example of it if you initate the Ryan ending on a PDX playthrough, or kill Zero Presence on a PDX playthrough.
    • 2027: You'll get this from Magnus if you are dishonest to him throughout the game (or brutually honest to him at one point.) Faction "leaders" at the end of the game will give you this if you perform actions against their goals.
• Deus Ex Human Revolution: After the factory mission, if you play a lethal playthough, the cops will chew you out, and a janitor will you if have always been this blood thirsty. Kill Zeke, and the cops will chew you out for preventing an interrogation. Let Zeke go, the police will chew you out, along with your boss.
  • You get this no matter what you do. If you kill Zeke, one of the police will be very hostile, while one will be sympathetic, with it being the other way around if he escaped but you save the hostage. Pritchard also always gives a sarcastic comment when returning, which only differs based on if you killed a lot of terrorists ("Well, if it isn't Atilla The Hun himself, back from the killing fields") or if you avoided killing many ("Well, if it isn't Mahatma Gandhi himself, come to save us all with his life-preserving presence").
• In Dead Space Extraction, Nathan calls the other two protagonists, Gabe and Warren, out when they just stood there while Lexine (and later the Engineer, who went over to save her) got grabbed by a tentacle. Because Nathan ends up being the only one doing the shooting, it results in the Engineer getting taken and killed by the tentacle. To put it in Nathan's words: "Jesus, thanks for the help, guys. Where were you?!" Undoubtedly, this moment of calling out is made all the more satisfying, considering that the fact that up until then, Nathan had pretty much been doing everything with the rest of them doing nothing but whining.
• In Kingdom Hearts, Sora and Riku take turns calling each other out throughout several parts of the game; Riku admonishes Sora for seemingly abandoning Kairi by teaming up to help Goofy and Donald, and Sora lectures Riku for siding with the Heartless to achieve his goals.
  • This happens to Sora in Chain of Memories...And he's called out by Vexen of all people, who tries to convince him that his memories are being changed to turn him into a puppet, and failing that tells Sora he has no right to be called a hero or a Keyblade Master if he's so easily manipulated. Likewise, Larxene calls out Naminé for suddenly appearing to be ready of sacrificing herself to save Sora despite being threatened into doing the memory manipulation only a short while before (is it becoming clear why Nobodies make such great villains yet?).
    • Similarly, Larxene calls out Sora in one scene about Naminé: "She's important to you? Ten seconds ago, you didn't even know her name!" It's all fake, though, so she's just screwing with him.
• Episode 3 of Phantasy Star Universe: In a refugee camp on Parum, Pipi Vol berates the GUARDIANS about their ineffectiveness and willingness to abandon their friends. Although she accuses the GUARDIANS of something they didn't do ( dropping G Colony on Parum), the rest of her accusations ring true given events that took place in Episodes 1 and 1.5 (Phantasy Star Portable).
• In Mega Man Zero, for the human citizens of Neo Arcadia, the La Résistance and Zero waging war against the Neo Arcadian military is an act of terrorism, even though they're only fighting to protect themselves. Come Zero 4, Neige, the leader of the human Caravan, berates Zero and Craft (the new Neo Arcadian general) for bringing the war to the peaceful haven of Area Zero, amongst the other "atrocities" that Zero's committed.

What are you doing to help humanity!? How can you talk about the greater good after seeing what you've done to harm nature and this Settlement!? It took a long time for nature to return to its former glory for the humans living here to find peace...You're trampling humanity underfoot, not helping it! It doesn't matter how hard you try to justify your actions you're both just fighting the same stupid war!

• In Suikoden II, during the Tinto arc, Nanami asks the Riou (your character) to run away. If you choose to, you're eventually forced to confront the other commanders of the army. Shu will slap Riou in the face, and tells him that his (and in turn, Your) cowardice cost one of the generals his life. If you keep refusing, the game ends - stating that the hero has lost the respect of everyone and the movement collapsed. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
• Dynasty Warriors provides a few instances. At Chang Ban, when Cao Cao decides to attack the peasants to get to Liu Bei, his own general Zhang He calls this out (albeit halfheartedly), while Liu Bei goes into full-on enraged hyper mode if you actually kill any peasants. Liu Bei himself gets the What the Hell treatment from Ma Chao and Yan Yan, among others, when he invades Liu Zhang's territory on a pretext even he knows to be incredibly flimsy (justifying it with I Did What I Had to Do).
  • That's pretty much how things were in the Three Kingdoms period. Life was cheap, emotions ran high, and the mightiest of lords seemingly couldn't screw up fast enough (hello, Yuan Shao!). Believe me, you're barely scratching the surface; this isn't even the worst decision Liu Bei made (that would be Yi Ling).
• In Dragon Age: Origins, there is a point in the game for each of your party members where, if you take certain actions, they will leave your party in disgust or even attack you. The most notable example is deciding to defile the Urn of Sacred Ashes. If Wynde or an unhardened Leliana are in your party, they will try to kill you for this.
  • One quest sends you to find the Anvil of the Void, which was once used to create Golems by sacrificing dwarves and using their life force to fuel the constructs. Their souls are still trapped in the anvil, begging for freedom. If your Golem sidekick Shale from one of the DLCs are with you, there will be additional conflict apart from the boss fight if you decide to keep the Anvil despite its evil power.
  • Morrigan, being the token evil team-mate, will berate you for being too kind to everyone you meet as that costs you valuable time and funds you should be using to amass an army and equipment for fighting the true evil: the Blight and the archdemon behind it.
  • Choose to sacrifice Isolde or kill Connor in Redcliffe, and Alistair will pull this on you when you get back to camp. He will also chew you out if you win enough disapproval from you, saying that his mentor, Duncan, would be disgusted by the mockery you're turning the Grey Wardens into.
  • He will also call you out at the Landsmeet if you choose to spare Loghain and/or have him executed after putting Anora on the throne.
    • This can be avoided, however, if you have a high enough persuasion.
  • In the City Elf Origin, Bann Vaughan will try to bribe the Warden to go home and pretend none of the day's events ever happened after they finally find him after he's raped Shianni. Should the Warden actually accept (What the Hell, Hero? indeed), it'll come back to bite them even after Vaughan tries to attack them once their guard's down anyway.
• Hawke can get called out on his/her more "evil" decisions by the party such as;
  • Making deals with demons.
  • Take an elven girl as a slave. (Subverted in that Fenris calls Hawke out on this...and Hawke can choose to say that s/he's giving her a job, leading to a Crowning Moment of Funny.)
  • Handing Isabella over to the Arishok.
  • Selling Fenris back into slavery.
  • You also get plenty of opportunities to call out your teammates on their actions - Isabela for holding on to the qunari relic to save her own skin even though it means letting the qunari declare war on the city, Merrill for making a deal with a demon that leads to her mentor/adopted mother sacrificing her own life to protect her, Fenris for killing people who pose no threat when he promised he'd let them go, and Anders for blowing up the Chantry with innocent priestesses, including Grand Cleric Elthina, inside.
• In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, softy protagonist Emil gets his fair share of these over his alter egos overly violent tendencies, from Tenebrea (rendered with hilarious casualness) for sending Marta off to her death, and even levels one on -himself- when he finds out the girl he's been protecting this entire time, he essentially set up as a decoy in the first place (Though this was also done by his other self). Prequel protagonist Lloyd Irving also faces them for his apparent face heel turn until it's revealed to be a combination of an evil doppleganger, a top secret save-the-world plan, and sheer bad timing.
• In Shadow President, your advisors will unequivocally voice their resounding disapproval if you ask for counsel on a particularly questionable action, e.g. a trade blockade against an allied country, an invasion of Canada, a nuclear strike, etc.. However, if you actually act on a nuclear threat, half of your cabinet will abandon you ("resign due to policy disagreements"). Simultaneously, the country's population will generally also make their opinions heard, as will the Soviet Union.
• During roughly the first half of Dungeon Siege 2's first chapter, the PC gets chastised by the Dryads for idiotically signing up as a mercenary for Valdis, despite him being a prime example of Obviously Evil. And, later on, once you return to your hometown, you get to hear the townspeople again remind you of how much of an idiot you were.
• In Episode 3 of Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse, They stole Max's Brain, Sam is called this by the C.O.P.S. after he treathed Carol at gun point for make the Crimetron work anyway with the two clues he had in that moment.
• During the second part of the Giant Tale storyline from Adventure Quest Worlds, your character learns about a village of Smuurvils (basically blue Smurf-like Sneevils) and promptly suggests feeding the Smuurvil village to the Giant so that he'll be too full to eat the villagers that the character is trying to free. The village elder is horrified at this suggestion. Then after he makes the suggestion of making a sleeping potion to use on the giant, your character then has the really crazy suggestion of feeding one of the villagers to the Giant with the potion so that the rest can get away, to which the poor elder's only appropriate response is "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Thankfully, your character wises up afterward.
  • At the end of the Etherstorm saga, you get one of these from Hs'Sakar after you slay Desoloth (the result of Evil winning the Etherstorm War) instead of sealing him like he and the other Dravix wanted, accusing you of taking away their ability to choose what happens to him out of sheer rash arrogance. Depending on how you answer Hs'Sakar's final question, he either sends you on your way after some restitution for all the death that resulted when Desoloth was freed, or he declares you Persona Non Grata before kicking you out of Etherstorm. Either way, you're also stripped of your Air power on the request of Ang'st, as "you do not deserve its blessing."
• Played straight, AND Averted in Shadow the Hedgehog, the eponymous character can choose to do good, evil, or neither, depending on the stage. (Example, most stages allow all three choices, but some only allow Hero/Villain, there's even one that only allows Villain/Neutral) You can freely choose between allies, Sonic-Nobody-Black Doom-Sonic-Doom-Nobody, for instance. If you have the hero as your current ally, they berate you for killing GUN Soldiers, or Eggman's Robots, strangely enough. If you play the villain, Doom/Eggman/etc get on to you for killing Black Arms, or Eggman's robots. Oddly enough, in one stage, killing Eggman's robots while doing either Hero OR Villain gets you yelled at.
  • Before and after Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow has generally been played straight as a Type IV, being the kind of guy who seems to be in a perpetual struggle to keep himself from punching the character he's currently talking to in the face.
• About two thirds of the way through Yggdra Union, Yggdra and her army decide that they should preemptively invade the empire of Bronquia to keep Gulcasa and the Imperial Army from trying to attack them again. Kylier suggests that they should just hold the border as doing anything else will have them sinking to Gulcasa's level, and reminds them that there are innocent villages in their way, but Yggdra remains convinced that this is the best way to protect her people (Kylier promptly leaves the party after this). One battle with a self-constructed and extremely untrained militia army later, Yggdra and company are a lot less certain.
  • There's also the What the Hell, Player? ending you can get if you refuse to fork the Gran Centurio over to Marietta in Battlefield 48, which will almost certainly not only perpetuate the cycle of war, but make it even more violent. You get a whole lot of Visible Silence from the party when you make this choice, although they resign themselves to it as the scenario goes on.
• Several of the Sega CD games, most notably Night Trap, and Ground Zero Texas, are notable for this. Make too many mistakes and you will get chewed out by one of the good guys, or mocked by of the villians. Here's an example from Night Trap:

Lt. Simms: I don't believe what I just saw! Those bloodsuckers just got Lisa, and you had a chance to save her! I put the lives of those girls in your hands and you screwed up! I'm pulling the plug on you before you do any more damage.

• Far Cry 2 has a minor example where civilians who accept your help (you give them passports in exchange for medicine for your malaria) will initially respond positively to you. As you complete more missions and you get a reputation among mercenaries, civilians will still do this trade with you (since they have little choice), but will hint that they regard you negatively.
• In Most Zelda games, attacking cuckoos will just cause them to kill you. However, in Link's Awakening, Marin would chew you out. Although this would be subverted on rare occasion, in which she would actually edge you on to "do it MOOOOOOOOOORE!!!".
  • A big one is in Ocarina Of Time when you let Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm... Although you kinda have to in order to move on with the game.
• You have to do this to the party in Persona 4 when they try to push Namatame into the TV, which is basically a death sentence in order to avoid the worst ending. The hero's attempts to keep his friends from doing something stupid leads to the line "Calm the hell down!" and the only time he's ever visibly angry in the entirety of the game.
• Deliberately failing mission objectives in the Strike series would often result in your getting a rather mild one of these from your commanding officer after you returned to base. There are some ways to fail missions that aren't even in the objectives, and these usually get the best 'What the Hell' moments from the commander since it was obviously your fault, no blaming it on terrorists.
• In L.A. Noire, Cole Phelps commits adultery with a club jazz singer, an action that earns him a demotion to the Arson desk and some pretty nasty comments from colleagues and passerby. Despite earlier remarks about morality and fidelity, Cole makes little attempt to reconcile with his wife and eventually leaves her and his daughters for Elsa without any apparent remorse. Though he still wears his wedding band. Classy.
• Sissel from Ghost Trick has this reaction to himself, upon finding out the in his world's original timeline, he essentially left all the people he's grown to care about over the course of the game to be murdered horribly in favour of his own interests. What the Hell, Hero? indeed.
• For the atrocity of stealing a soul, Mortal Kombat's Shang Tsung was condemned by the 'good' Elder Gods to... do it over and over again. Just to twist the knife, Shang doesn't give a crap about the souls he takes either, and it actually makes him more and more powerful. It's like condemning a murderer to a life as a Serial Killer, and the murderer enjoys killing.
• Heavy Rain would have the case of By-The-Book Cop Norman Jayden calling out Rabid Cop Carter Blake for his actions such as beating up Nathaniel and putting him at gunpoint for stopping him from beating Ethan.
  • Captain Perry calls out Jayden when he accuses Blake of being the Origami Killer.
• While it is expected for these to occur in certain stages in each installment of Dynasty Warriors, some games have unique ones due to different retellings that may or may not involve character changes. In DW6, Zhang Fei blames Zhuge Liang for Guan Yu's death (At the hands of Wei and Wu) due to his strategies. Though he understands that it's not his fault, as people die in war. He's just upset that he doesn't seem to care.
• During the siege against the Al Bhed Home in Final Fantasy X, Tidus learns that if Yuna completes her pilgrimage she'll die. He promptly gives a What the Hell, Hero? to Lulu, Wakka, and Kimahri. After the scene unfolds some more and his ignorance of the world he's in hits him, he gives one to himself as well.
• In The Reconstruction, Dehl receives an indignant speech from Mahk after he kills (or at the very least, severely injures) two Nalian slavers in front of Xopi. He becomes an outcast of the Sikohlon family because of this.
• This is relatively common in the Lucasarts adventure games; for example, in the Monkey Island series, Guybrush steals things so freely that he's implied to be a kleptomaniac rather than an average pirate, and Day of the Tentacle features the memorable line "If you want to save the world, you have to kick a few old ladies down the stairs."
• One point in Strange Journey has you requested to kill some relatively harmless people at the behest of demons (who were previously tortured by said people before they were rendered harmless). Zelenin offers to use her song on the demons as an alternative. If you take this option, the demons are blown into their component data in a slow, horribly painful process. At which point Jiminez arrives and curses you out.
• Attacking Priscilla the Crossbreed, a half-dragon who was hounded by the gods for her Lifehunt ability before hiding in the Painted World in Dark Souls will have her call you out on it, as she's completely peaceful and even shows you the way out of, and you have to actually go out of your way to even reach her, and mainly the only reason to kill her is to make some weapons from her death.
• In Batman: Arkham City, we have one of these that leads up to an effectively pointless boss fight. Mr. Freeze has just made a cure for a disease that both Batman and the Joker (and a couple hundred or so innocent people as well for that mater) have been infected with. Mr. Freeze seals up one container of the cure and then crushes the other to make it clear that he means business and tells Batman that he must rescue his wife Nora from the Joker who captured him to force Mr. Freeze to make the cure in the first place. Batman responds to this offer by trying to take the cure from Freeze by force. Now given that Batman has already agreed to do tasks for the Joker, and Ra's al-Ghul that night for the purpose of getting a cure for the disease that Joker has come down with and spread, why does he feel the need to turn down Freeze's task to retrieve his frozen wife who would otherwise doubtlessly be left to the Joker's tender mercies?
  • The fact that there's an optional mission after this where you can rescue Nora anyway makes the boss fight even more pointless, and makes it look like it was simply a case of Batman being too proud to let himself be ordered to do something he would be willing to do if asked, which seems pretty childish at the best of times, and particularly ridiculous when he has spent the rest of the game obeying the Joker and Ra's al-Ghul.
• In Armored Core: For Answer, Your operator, who has stood by you through countless missions can't help but register her disgust at the choices your pilot makes that lead to Ending C. The enemies who appear to kill you and your accomplice after the fated mission also lash out at you with the following, starting with your Operator herself:
  • "Please accept my apologies. That briefing you saw was manufactured. This is the end of road for you. I think you understand why."
  • "Your actions were clearly deliberate, there's no point in trying to reason with you."
  • "Maybe it's just an animal. Can it even understand what we're saying?"
  • "You think you're some kind of one man army? You think it's your right to choose who lives and dies?"
  • "You kill too many."
    • The icing on the cake is on the mission's Hard mode, in which Kasumi Sumika, your operator decides to try and back up those harsh words by also trying to kill you.
  • "To end up facing you like this... Too bad. You walked right into my trap. Stand still so I can cut you down." - Kasumi Sumika, your operator
    • • That mission has a Hard Mode?!?!!?
      • It's beatable...if you cheat. When you kill Kasumi Sumika's NEXT, these are her last words: "If this is my time...who better than you to deliver the final blow?"
        • Depends on what you mean by "cheating", using previous patches isn't really cheating now is it? Of course, it's beatable without using Reg 1.00.
      • And the worst part about it? Old King was the only true rebel leader against the corporations which speaks a about the rebel groups.